Datto vs Zerto – these are the facts, you be the judge

Which one is right for your business: Datto vs Zerto?

There are a lot of business continuity and disaster recovery solutions on the market and as business continuity specialists, we need to know about them all. Lately, we’ve been hearing some rumblings about Zerto. That said, we wanted to do our homework and check out the competition as we’ve had little exposure with the solution to date. Let’s take a look at Datto vs Zerto.

First impression was positive

Zerto has received some positive feedback from some big, national clients that proclaim the solution is easy-to-use and delivers quick restore times. Ok, that’s promising. Right on the homepage, they claim to have solutions that offer continuous availability to withstand any IT infrastructure outage, disaster or technology change and confidently move your business forward — well, that’s a pretty big promise, let’s dig little deeper and see how Zerto measures up.

Datto vs Zerto: What exactly is it?

After a little digging, we’ve concluded that Zerto is a software solution that offers hypervisor-based replication for VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V environments. It runs on VMware Hyper vision as a virtual machine and can replicate VMs site-to-site with instant virtualization. So far, so good. However, we learned that unlike Datto, Zerto does not protect the HyperVisor. Yikes. What’s worse is that it adds load to the servers and does not provide onsite virtualization should server hardware fail. Well, that’s a problem for a disaster recovery solution that claims to withstand any possible disaster.

Datto vs Zerto: How fast is fast?

Zerto is fast. It offers site-to-site replication via VPN and provides near instant virtualization in 8 to 30 seconds. That said, offsite virtualization is provided by AWS, which is an add-on and means you are restricted to AWS terms and conditions.

Not bad, but Datto is better. Datto’s claim to fame is recovery in as few as 6 seconds. In addition, Datto provides instant onsite virtualization onsite and offsite. In addition, it offers Hybrid virtualization via the Datto Cloud.

Datto vs Zerto: What’s the backup method, anyway?

This is where Datto starts to pull away. Zerto provides virtual machine replication, which means long-term roll back of backups is limited to only 5 days. And, there is absolutely no protection for physical machines.

Datto’s proprietary Inverse Chain Technology does things differently. It saves each backup image in a universal file format (VMDK / VHD), which makes each backup a fully bootable virtual machine image. As a result, there is no “roll-up” or reclamation process that has to occur to obtain a full backup image. Since there aren’t co-dependencies between snapshot images, users can delete a snapshot or change retention policies as they wish.

Datto vs Zerto: What is the deal with the RTOs?

Zerto may claim that they can recover replicated VMs in just 7 seconds. However, let’s take a closer look. Their RTO time is reliant on machine-to-machine replication, which unfortunately (for their end-users) will require LAN or Broadband connectivity. Zerto may do a solid job at replication, but it is not a backup solution.

On the other hand, Datto provides backup and (speedy) recovery or — as we like to say– intelligent business continuity. It’s fairly simple. Datto has the option to use an Agent that is part of the ShadowSnap engine, which can monitor block-level changes as they occur. This means when it’s time to backup, the device can instantly find the sectors changed and back them up. This is why Datto can create a backup snapshot with a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of just 5 minutes.

Datto vs Zerto: What about the extras?

In need of support? We’ve learned Zerto’s support is based in Israel. As a committed BCDR solution provide, Datto offers US and UK-based support that is available literally 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every single day of the year.

What about taking these solutions for a spin? Well, both BCDR solutions come with a trial. However, we couldn’t find any information about a warranty for Zerto. With the new Datto SIRIS 3, the company is providing an impressive five year warranty as well as an advanced replacement promise.

Datto vs Zerto: What’s the conclusion?

Zerto is a solid solution to replicate your data. However, it isn’t a complete BDR solution. Datto provides truly Intelligent Business Continuity solutions for businesses of every size, regardless of infrastructure. Contact us today to see for yourself and schedule a demo of Datto technology.

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Tracy Rock is the Director of Marketing at Invenio IT. Tracy is responsible for all media-related initiatives as well as external communications—including, branding, public relations, promotions, advertising and social media. She is one busy lady and we are lucky to have her!

Invenio IT is simply awesome! I have been working with Dale for a couple of years now and the service and after sales support is great. I have submitted support requests and literally have had them resolved in under 20 minutes. That is great service!

Incredible professionalism from the Invenio staff. Hard working, a joy to do business with, and true innovators. This is a company that values its partnerships and will always do what's best for the customer.

So... how complicated would your life be if you lost precious data files and there was no chance of recovery. Sounds scary. Yes it does. Life can be easier. You can take an associates human error of erasing or losing work or even an equipment failure that would have you work through the weekend in stride. Deploying a DATTO Sirus will protect your data locallly and in the cloud with so many easy ways to recover when the need arises. Support is excellent and reliable. Get a DATTO Sirus and rest... assured!

Solid Datto support for our server systems. In the rare event there's been an issue, Invenio often knows before we do and has a fix ready. They are highly responsive to questions and keep our backup system.

The fantastic Datto SIRIS coupled with the helpful folks at Invenio IT have let me stop worrying about my backups and disaster recovery plans to focus on more important things such as my morning coffee and keeping users from destroying the network before lunch.

Great partner to have. I recently joined the company I work for and found that they have a Datto backup system. I have never used the system and with the assistance of Dale at Invenio IT the learning curve has been an easy one. They typically let me know if something has gone wrong before I even knew it happened. Bottom line, outstanding support. I would highly recommend them for your IT services needs.

Purchasing my SIRIS3 through Invenio IT has been one of the best decisions I’ve made. They always reach out to help whenever a problem arises, often before I even know there’s an issue with my backups. When my business got hit with Ransomware, I was able to restore my entire environment within a matter of hours thanks to my SIRIS3 and Invenio IT!

Invenio IT is a great organization to work with. Their consulting and managed services are exceptional are always at the leading edge of I.T. Strategy and execution, anticipating what you need before you experience an expensive order of magnitude "issue". They lead with integrity and clear down to earth communications. Highly recommended.

Great company medium sized organizations, handles all the management of data integrity, data redundancy/backup and all of your data management needs. I was truly lucky to have a excellent company supporting my orgazation when we did actually encounter data issues. Invenio IT was able to quickly assess and analyze the problem and then fix our issues with no down-time and little to no effect on our user base. Thank you Invenio IT.

Invenio IT has supported my business for the past few years and I have had a great experience. The staff is knowledgeable and go out of their way to make technology simple to understand. If you are in need of a strategic (and friendly) IT partner, I would consider this company.